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something I guess I never knew before which is that people
want
to be on television. Judges and lawyers are just people and they see a camera and they smile and talk a whole lot like everybody else and inside the courthouse there seemed to be more cameras and reporters than there were outside.
    â€œLook over here, Tony, over here. Look this way. When did your mother stop beating you, Tony? Alice, over here, Alice, stand sideways, Alice, give us a profile, Alice . . .”
    And on and on and I looked over at Al and I thought this was horrible and she could see what I was thinking and it made her at first sad and then mad and about then a reporter jostled her and she turned and her eyes did that sparkly thing again and just then I was relieved to see that Ms. Klein had come for what she called “artistic support” and Miles was there too, because Waylon had told him what was happening and he is in the arts and wanted to help and that’s when Miles met Al and the electricity thing happened and she forgot about the rude reporters.
    I said to Al, “This is Miles, he’s my drama teacher who faints sometimes when he reads Shakespeare because it’s so good,” and she looked at him and smiled and said, “Sometimes Dickens does the same thing to me,” and the spark came and Miles smiled and I smiled and we went into the courtroom and the state had Mrs. Preston there and Mrs. Preston stood up and said to the judge:
    â€œWe were called in on a complaint, Your Honor, and during the investigation we were attacked by the defendant and in subsequent investigation it was found that the defendant is a stripper at a place called the Kit Kat Club, where she allowed her son to go and draw pornographic pictures of the other dancers—”
    The judge stopped her by holding up a hand and he looked at Al and I thought he was being nice because he smiled although I think really it was probably for the cameras which were all across the back of the courtroom.
    â€œIs all that true?” he asked Al, and her attorney started to rise but Al pushed him back down.
    When she stood the room grew quiet except for the clicking of the cameras. She turned to look at all the cameras and then she glanced back at the judge.
    â€œNo.”
    The judge waited for her to continue, and when she didn’t, he said, “I beg your pardon?”
    â€œThat is a categorically false representation of the facts.”
    The judge again waited for her to continue, and when she didn’t, he sighed. “Let’s do this another way. Let’s try to find some facts. Are you a stripper?”
    Al shook her head. “No. I am a provocative dancer. But it’s more like the story of the Glass Café.”
    â€œWhat story is that?”
    Al took a breath and let it out and cameras flicked and flashed. “In Beirut, Lebanon, before it was destroyed by street gangs, when it was the most beautiful city on the Mediterranean, there was a place called the Glass Café. They served coffee in small cups with saucers and men who were professional storytellers would sit and tell stories for listeners who would put coins in the saucers.”
    â€œI don’t see—”
    â€œThe storytellers were very good and they knew just when to hesitate, when to wait in a story to leave the listeners hanging so they could not stand it and would have to put more money in the saucers to hear the rest of the story.”
    â€œAnd the point of all this is . . .”
    â€œI dance the same way. I make people think things, want to know more, and I use the dance to tell the story they want to hear. I am like the Glass Café.”
    â€œBut you take your clothes off.”
    â€œIt’s part of the dance, part of the story, a costume, a nonuniform that becomes a uniform.”
    He looked at the ceiling, then back down at the row of cameras, then at Al. “It seems a bit of a stretch.”
    Al looked back at him, into